Album review: Cage Fight – Exuvia

Exuvia is a more elegant-sounding term for the process of shedding skin. Crabs do it, insects do it, but Cage Fight do it more aggressively than most. That is, they sound like their skin was torn off by force, the result of a traumatic event that’s bled into some of vocalist Rachel Aspe’s lyrics in what marks her first time holding a pen as well as a microphone. For the London quartet, that process of exuvia also has a more positive meaning as they size up their sound into a bigger, beastlier iteration.

From the word go, it’s obvious Cage Fight’s ambitions have deepened. That much is clear from the mysterious tone of the pulsing, atmospheric opener Confined, evoking the choking claustrophobia that its title suggests. Oxygen is a slamming shard of sonic warfare whose drums might as well be the sounds of a battlefield, but its apex comes when Rachel screams, ‘I can’t breathe,’ gasping in agony in the first of a huge stack of almighty vocal performances.

Much of the time, they’re envisioning sweat-soaked mayhem. New bassist Will Horsman, who wrote two songs here, has penned an absolute doozy of a mosh call with ‘Feel the hammer crush!’ for one. Later, Pick Your Fighter is a pulverising anthem totally unafraid to be larger than life, even a little ridiculous, its ostentatiousness matched by Benighted vocalist Julien Truchan’s eye-watering pig squeals.

Other moments weigh heavy in a different sense. Pig is as merciless lyrically as it is sonically as Rachel cuts down creeps sending her unsolicited explicit photos: ‘Keep your blistered hands in your pockets / And that maggot in your pants.’ The similarly pugilistic IHYG finds her with her claws bared as she confronts the person responsible for her trauma – ‘I erase you, repulsive empty shell / Kill the ghost, chapter closеd.’ Closer Élégie is a breathtaking swerve to the left, towards balladry and heartbreak as she laments the regrets of all the things she never said to her grandfather before she lost him.

All of this amounts to a seismic evolution, in which Cage Fight leap above the level of potential they had on their 2022 debut. And, of course, it goes very, very hard.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Employed To Serve, Hatebreed, Malevolence

Exuvia is released on May 1 via Spinefarm.